Motives of bomber a remain mystery

Store video helped ID man blamed in blasts

PFLUGERVILLE, TEXAS • A serial bomber suspected of terrorizing Texas for three weeks before blowing himself up Wednesday, left behind two chilling mysteries: why he did it and whether he planted more explosives.

Mark Anthony Conditt, an unemployed 23-year-old college dropout, drove into a ditch and detonated a bomb in his SUV as a SWAT team closed in on him in Round Rock, 30 km from Austin.

He had been tracked down using store surveillance video, cellphone signals and witness accounts of a customer making purchases wearing a blond wig and gloves.

Police finally found him at a hotel in the Austin suburb. There, officers prepared to move in early Wednesday. When the suspect’s vehicle began to drive away, authorities followed.

Even after the explosive ending, a city on edge was told to stay on guard.

“Two very important things before we can put this to rest. One, we don’t know if there are any other bombs out there and if so, how many and where they may be,” Gov. Greg Abbott said on Fox News.

“Second, very importantly, we need to go throughout the day to make sure that we rule out whether there was anybody else involved in this process.”

Investigators also don’t know the motive behind the five bombings in the Texas capital and suburban San Antonio that killed two people and wounded four others.

They released few details about Conditt, except his age and that he was white. Neighbours say he was homeschooled. He later attended Austin Community College from 2010 to 2012, according to a college spokeswoman, but did not graduate.

Conditt was a quiet, “nerdy” young man who came from a “tight-knit, godly family,” Donna Sebastian Harp, who had known the family for nearly 18 years, told The New York Times.

Conditt’s family issued a statement saying they were “devastated and broken” to be caught up in the attacks: “We had no idea of the darkness that Mark must have been in.”

Conditt lived in the Austin suburb of Pflugerville, in a house he shared with two roommates — who were both detained and questioned by investigators Wednesday.

Mark Roessler, who lived across the street, said Conditt and his father, Pat, bought the house two years ago as a “fixer-upper project.”

He said Conditt was “very polite” and that he and his father worked together for a year before Conditt moved in. “It was obvious the dad had a loving bond for his son,” said Roessler.

“He confided in me he was trying to build their relationship. Mark was quiet. He invited me into the house two or three times and saw the remodel work. Mark moved in some time last year and I haven’t seen much of him since. I would see people his age, males, come and go from the house.”

From an early age the four siblings — Mark was the oldest and only boy — were all home-schooled by Danene Conditt, their mother.

Jeremiah Jensen, 24, told the Austin American-Statesman that Conditt was “rough around the edges.”

“What I remember about him, he would push back on you if you said something without thinking about it. He loved to think and argue and turn things over and figure out what was really going on.” Jensen said Conditt regularly attended the Austin Stone Community Church. “I know faith was a serious thing for him,” he said.

In posts dated from 2012, a blogger who identified himself as Mark Conditt of suburban Pflugerville wrote that gay marriage should be illegal. He also called for the elimination of sex offender registrations and argued in favour of the death penalty.

Austin was hit with four bombings starting on March 2. First packages left on doorsteps exploded, then a bomb with a tripwire was placed near a public trail. A fifth parcel bomb detonated Tuesday at a FedEx distribution centre near San Antonio.

Rep. Michael McCaul, a Republican from Austin, said Conditt’s “fatal mistake” was walking into a FedEx store to mail a package because that allowed authorities to obtain surveillance video that showed him and his vehicle, along with his plate number. From there, investigators could identify the suspect and eventually track him using his cellphone.

THE HOME-SCHOOLED CONDITT CAME FROM A ‘GODLY FAMILY.’